ornitz@kodak.UUCP (02/07/87)
In article <504@PSUECLA>, mrb@psuecla.BITNET writes: > > Did any one ever see a real live IBM 1800, which was an 1130 with data acqui- > sition facilities? > The last time I looked, our company salvage facilities had an 1800 for sale. I think our salvage department works like a dog pound - if no one wants it and puts up a few bucks for adoption, they crush it! Seriously folks, if anyone wants it for spare parts, give me a call and I will get them in touch with the right people here. And for some real process control nostalgia, has anyone out there ever programmed a GE-312? This was the only machine I ever knew that had backup for the machine through the memory. An AC motor turned the drum memory; torque was sent through the drum to turn a DC generator mounted below. The generator charged batteries and acted as the drum motor if the power failed. Since it was a synchronous machine, minor speed variations did not hurt. I still have the power supply for one of these. It took six of us to lift it out of the cabinet. Of course this was also the only computer I have ever seen with crane hooks attached to each cabinet. Wow, a multiton 32K word (20 bit) machine with 512 point analog I/O (16 bit) with a typical execution of 10 instructions per millisecond. And to think I did direct digital control with this machine. The power supply makes a nice arc welder! Barry L. Ornitz Eastman Chemicals Division Research Kingsport, TN 37662 615/229-4904
ado@elsie.UUCP (02/08/87)
> Did any one ever see a real live IBM 1800, which was an 1130 with data acqui- > sition facilities? IBM 1800's aren't that old--and their architecture was ahead of its time. At the University of California at San Diego's Revelle College, we were able to put UNIX on an 1800 back in 1975. Okay, okay. . .so the 1800 didn't run UNIX. But it provided the disk storage for a PDP-11/40 clone that did run UNIX--and for Texas Instruments and Modcomp minis as well, via one-megabit serial links that ran between CAMAC crates in the 1800 and the other machines. The 1800 had been decommissioned by the time I left UCSD in 1979; I still have fond memories of it though. Ours had been named "Blue Max" when it and a companion--named "Red Baron"-- were used for sea-going research by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in earlier times. We followed the pattern of naming computers after their cabinetry colors; our Evans & Sutherland Picture System I was the "Black Eye" while our Varian--which replaced the 1800 as a central disk server-- was the "White Tornado." I never did convince folks to pronounce it "1-80-0". -- \ UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. \ PDP is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation.\ IBM is a trademark of IBM. \ Kodak (on the "References" line) may be trademarked. \ And there are surely others I've missed. \ -- \ UUCP: ..decvax!seismo!elsie!ado ARPA: elsie!ado@seismo.ARPA DEC, VAX, Elsie & Ado are Digital, Borden & Ampex trademarks.